In addition to asking your clients for their email addresses, ask your clients for lists of email addresses they may have. They may be willing to share them with you or make a solicitation for you. For example, say you have a client that belongs to the local garden club with 250 members. Your client may be happy to give you a copy of that list or solicit the members on your behalf with something like the following email:

Dear Folks,

Bob Smith has been my financial advisor for the last three years. He has an excellent financial newsletter for us called "Envision" and you can get a free subscription. Each issue contains articles on where to invest for more income, items on insurance like long-term care, tips on reducing your income taxes and estate planning, etc. To get a free email subscription, just click here. Stu Svenson
President

Just like you can rent mailing lists for sending mail, you can rent 2 million+ email addresses of different target groups. Of course, you may only want those in your area and you can select those you desire by zip code.

At your library, you can find a copy of the "SRDS" Direct Marketing List Source (your library may have this service on-line from a PC at the library).

If they have the physical books, find the section on email lists and look under a category such as "seniors", for example. If they have the service on line, search on keyword "senior" and request only email lists. When we last checked, there were over 25 email lists of seniors. In the details of the list, you want the lists that offer a zip code selection so you can email to only those seniors in your area. Please note that unlike regular mailing lists, email list vendors usually will not give you the list. They will want to do the email for you. So you are not going to be emailing them the newsletter. Rather you are going to be emailing them a solicitation to subscribe to your newsletter. It is those people who respond that you will add to your email newsletter list. Once they respond you then "own" that email address.

There are dozens of websites focused only on seniors or other groups in your area. Just for fun, we did a search on "Columbus Ohio Senior." Here's what we got without looking any further:

www.ohiosenior.com - a web site for Ohio retirees-$49 a month for a banner ad
www.columbuswired.net/SeniorLiving/default.htm - the senior page of Ohio's web magazine-$20 a month
www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~seniors/ - the Aging in Ohio web site
www.subasekb.navy.mil/retkbnews.htm - the site for local Navy retirees
www.oshpra.org/mends.htm - the Retiree Association of the Ohio State Patrol By the way, you will find these local websites faster if you use a search engine that is really many search engines in one. Use the tool at www.dogpile.com or better, download free software from www.copernic.com

This is how prospective clients will contact you when they receive the newsletter. Remember that the information entered into these fields will display on the newsletter that your clients will see, and accuracy is important.

1. First Name - This field is required. This field will appear on your newsletter.
2. Last Name - This field is required. This field will appear on your newsletter.
3. User Name - This is your user ID, use it to log in to the site.
4. Password - This field is required. This is your password. You may change your password by typing in the new password, confirming the new password (see next item) and clicking "Save" at the bottom of the page. Be careful, as whatever you type will be represented by asterisks for security reasons.
5. Confirm Password - This field is required. Retype your new password. Be careful, as whatever you type will be represented by asterisk for security reasons.
6. Email Address - This field is required. This is the email address that your subscribers will reply to for further information. This is also the email address that undeliverable emails will be sent .
7. Address Line 1 - This field is required. This is your street address.
8. Address Line 2 - This field is required. This field is not required, but can be used if your address is too large for the field above.
9. City - This field is required. This is your city.
10. State - This field is required. This is your state.
11. Zip - This field is required. This is your zip.
12. Country - This field is required. This is your country. It is pre filled to "US".
13. Telephone No 1 - This field is required. This is the number subscribers will respond to for more information.
14. Telephone No 2- This field is not required, but you may use it if you have second line for subscribers to respond.
15. Fax No - This field is required. This is the fax number subscribers will respond to for more information.
16. Email Message Title - This is the subject line of the email newsletter. This is what your subscribers will see first and should be kept concise and descriptive. No HTML tags should be used in this field.
17. Agent Bio - This will be displayed at the bottom of the newsletter. Simply hit "enter" to start a new paragraph.
18. Your photo - The photo will appear next to your biography. The size of the photo MUST BE 80 pixels wide by 100 pixels high. Your file name must be your first and last name, with NO SPACES in between and NO CAPS ( ie. bobsmith.jgp ). The photo should be 72DPI (dots per inch) and must be a recognizable graphics type (.gif, .jpg). Any variation from the above specifications may result in your photo either not appearing correctly in your email newsletter, or not at all.

    Go to Picture and Photo Resizing for detailed instructions for resizing photos in MS Paint, which most people have in Microsoft Office programs. For a charge of $35, we can format your digital photo so that it meets the size and filename requirements.
    

19. To upload your photo:
    1. Click on "Upload Photo" button on the top of the list.
    2. Click "Browse" and select the file you want to upload. Remember that the file must be a recognizable graphics type (.gif, .jpg), and be 80 pixels wide by 100 pixels high, and no more than 18KB (view properties to see how large your file is).
    3. Click "Upload File".
    4. You will receive a message that the file has been uploaded as well as be able to view your photo.
    5. Click "OK" to return to the main contact information page.

You will need to select the articles for your newsletter.

1. Click on the "Select Articles" button on the left side. You will see a list of articles that are available for your use. The articles are sorted by content. Articles with general non-securities related content are first in the list, securities related articles are on the bottom.
2. To read an article, click "Preview" and then "Back" when you are finished.
3. To select an article, click "Save" and your choice will be saved. Again, use the "Back" button to return to the article list.
4. The application will keep track of how many articles you have selected (to a maximum of 3 and will not allow you select more than the maximum for the month.)
5. If for some reason you do not select articles in a given month, the first three active non-securities articles will be used for your newsletter.

You will need to delete old articles each month in order to be able to select your new content. This screen also allows you to preview your newsletter.

1. Click on the "My Articles" button on the left side. You will see the list of articles you have selected. You can also view the date your newsletter will be sent and a "Preview Newsletter" button on the top of the table.
2. Delete articles from your list by using the "Delete" button.
3. When you are satisfied with your article selections, you can preview your newsletter by clicking the "Preview Newsletter" button.

You will need to enter subscribers into the database. This is easily done by uploading a file with the subscriber information.

• Click on "Subscribers" on the left hand side of the page.
• You will see three buttons across the top of the page (Add Subscriber, Upload Subscribers, Search Subscribers).
• To add a single subscriber, click on "Add Subscriber" and complete the fields (First Name, Last Name, Email Address) and set the subscriber to "Active" using the radio button. Finally, click "Save". You will be taken back to the main subscriber page and should see your new subscriber on the list.

To upload multiple subscribers:

1. Click on "Upload Subscribers" button on the top of the list.
2. Click "Browse" and select the file you want to upload. Remember that the file must be a comma separated values (.txt, .csv) file. You can create this file in Microsoft Excel or with any Text Editor.
3. Be sure that you have one subscriber per line with the first name, last name and then email address on each line (ie. John,Jones,jjones@email.org).
4. Click "Send File".
5. Verify that you are uploading the correct file by clicking "Continue Import". You can also cancel the upload at this stage.
6. You will receive a message that the file has been uploaded.
7. You will also see a list of the results of your upload.
8. Click "Subscriber List" to return to the main subscriber page.
9. If you have problems uploading your subscribers, we can do it for you at the cost of $25. Send an email to learn more about this program.

• To search for a subscriber, click on "Search Subscribers" and enter either the email address or the name of the subscriber. You may enter both if you like, but only one is needed. Click the "Search" button and the results will appear.
• To delete a subscriber, simply click the "Delete" button next to the subscriber in the list.
• To edit a subscriber, click the "Edit" button associated with the subscriber. Make any changes and then click the "Save" button. The "Back" button will return you to the subscriber list without saving any changes.